LAST week, President Rodrigo Duterte signed an administrative order that created the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media.
According to the order, the duty of the task force is to ensure a safe environment for media workers.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been an encouraging development. The practice of journalism in the Philippines is seen as one of the most dangerous in the world, next only to conflict zones.
Unfortunately, the President’s antagonism toward members of the media, which he perfectly articulated in the early days of his administration, gives us reason to wonder how sincere he is in protecting the lives, liberties and security of media workers.
Who would, for instance, be able to brush aside his comments implying that murdered journalists likely had it coming because they were corrupt?
A few days later, Mr. Duterte qualified these incendiary statements saying that there were various groups of media workers in the Philippines: the true advocates, the paid hacks and the corrupt. He meant to say that his previous statements applied only to the third group.
Media workers and organizations will not deny that some among us do give the profession its bad name. Measures are being done to address this at the core. Nonetheless, it does not give anybody any reason to justify their killing—something that has entered a gray area like many other things in this organization.
Already international watchdog Human Rights Watch, through a statement by its deputy Asia director Phelim Kine, said journalists have reason to be skeptical about the integrity of a Duterte government inquiry.
Kine said: “Not just because Duterte has himself justified the ‘assassination’ of journalists he deems ‘corrupt’ but also because the government has been cheerleading killings without consequence in its so-called ‘war on drugs’…”
And indeed since the start of the Duterte administration until the first week of October, more than 3,000 have been killed via either ‘legitimate’ police operations or vigilante-style assassinations.
We can almost hear how the now-notorious presidential mouth will respond to this latest expression of doubt by a representative of an international body—if he has not, already. But Mr. Duterte cannot blame Kine, or anyone for that matter, for thinking that the belated creation of the task force may just be some form of damage control given the earlier damning statements the President has issued on the matter.
He may choose to respond to this latest reaction in another way, for a change. We wonder if it is really beyond the President to not take offense and instead assure journalists and the entire public that he respects forthrightness and constructive criticism.
